On Monday, David would usually arrive late with a yogurt and coffee. He’d read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post, and the current issue of Newstime, as well as its equally famous competitor, Weekly. He would take a long lunch after his boss, Senior Editor John Syms, informed him of his assignment for the week. After lunch, David would look into his office in case (by some miracle) there was something to do, and when inevitably there wasn’t, he’d head home. Monday was his favorite day.
David had finished comparing the Weekly’s story on the Haig news conference with his own story on it (David concluded he’d done a better job) when Syms appeared at his door.
“Are you free for lunch?”
David was a bit surprised. Syms rarely wasted a lunch on a writer; he usually angled for a Marx Brother. “Sure.”
“Now?”
David followed Syms outside to a deli nearby — for some reason, Syms was cheap with his expense account, much to the Nation section’s aggravation — and they chatted about how badly they had beaten the Weekly on Haig.
“They missed the point,” Syms said. “This is an unusual breaking of the ranks for Reagan, as we noted.”
As I noted, David thought to himself. Syms, among many other irritating qualities, always referred to a writer’s work as “we” and “us” when it was good, and as “you” and “yours” when it was bad.
“Reagan has so far had his people maintain a solid front,” Syms went on.
“Yeah,” David answered, relieved that this lunch was not going to be a session of criticism of his work. “I didn’t expect the Reagan administration to have the sort of administrative flap that Carter was always having.”
Syms went on in this vein until their sandwiches arrived. Then he looked gravely at the stainless-steel bowl of pickles and said, “Have you been hearing rumors about Steinberg?”
Jeff Steinberg was the editor in chief of Newstime. There were always rumors, but Syms obviously meant a particular and exciting one. “No,” David said, and continued eating without any show of curiosity. To evince interest would only make Syms more reluctant to part with his information: above all, he hated eagerness.
“I’m surprised. Maybe you were so busy with the cover, no one wanted to bother you with gossip.” Syms hissed disapproval on the word “gossip.”
David continued eating.
“Well,” Syms said with a sigh. “There’s talk Steinberg is in trouble.”
David looked up briefly to raise his eyebrows, and returned to his plate.
Syms frowned. “Roitman” (the managing editor) “has been spreading it — of course. But there seems to be something to it. Mrs. Thorn” (the owner of Newstime) “has scheduled a general meeting with the senior editors tomorrow and she’s in right now with Steinberg.”
David knew that Mrs. Thom only scheduled meetings with senior editors for major announcements of change. Nevertheless, he showed no alarm or fascination. “What’s Roitman saying is going to happen?” he asked coolly.
“That Steinberg is going to be fired.” Syms now picked up his sandwich, bit into it, and chewed angrily.
David tried to figure out what effect that might have on him, but he couldn’t. So he waited and chewed.
“I’m sorry to say,” Syms finally said. “I think he’s right. There’s been a lot of criticism of Steinberg’s soft covers— Jerry Brown, disco, and so on. After all, Steinberg is abrasive. He has alienated a lot of the old guard.”
Syms meant by this that Steinberg had been slowly pushing editors hired by his predecessor out of important positions by putting people over them in newly created titles. Thus Newstime was now chock-full of deputies, associates, and executive editors as well as an abnormally high overhead in the midst of a recession.
“I thought Mrs. Thorn was unhappy with the old guard. Isn’t that why she promoted Steinberg?”
Syms looked wise and cynical. “That was a long time ago. Nearly a year. She’s probably forgotten.”
David nodded. He knew enough not to agree or disagree. Syms was equally changeable. If Mrs. Thorn promoted him to Marx Brother status, Syms would think better of her, and anything David said against her now might be remembered, without Syms also recalling that he began the attack.
“Steinberg promoted me,” Syms went on, “and I don’t think his departure would do me much good. If she does dismiss him tomorrow, Nation might be in turmoil for a while. I felt you deserved some warning.”
“I appreciate it,” David said, but actually he was confused. Technically, he had been promoted by Syms and Steinberg, but David’s impression was that the old guard also liked him. In any case, although senior writers were affected by changes in top management, they were rarely— if ever — fired or even demoted because of them. Besides, he didn’t care: he was sure his work would be approved of by any editor in chief. His covers — he had done four in the last three months — had won two awards and general approval in the company besides. David concluded that Syms was merely trying to develop an ally, and the fact that Syms would bother with a mere senior writer was a symptom of his self-doubt. “If Mrs. Thorn is upset by all the soft covers, why would there be concern about Nation? We can’t be held responsible for that.”
“No,” Syms said, as if that were exactly his line of defense. “But when an editor in chief is fired, everything is called into question.”
After that, all of Syms’s remarks were general. Only when back in his office could David tap into the grapevine. David dropped in on Bill Cane, deputy senior editor of the Business section, one of the old guard, and his first boss. Cane was jubilant:
“So you’ve heard! Tell me exactly.”
“Only that Steinberg is leaving tomorrow. Mrs. Thorn is going to announce it at the meeting.”
“Who told you?”
David hesitated, but it was only a pause of nerves; he had made up his mind to give away that fact before he approached Cane. “Syms.”
Cane smiled. “He’s scared, isn’t he?”
David smiled back. “Should he be?”
Cane frowned and swiveled in his chair. He hit his carriage return and watched it glide back before answering. “I don’t think so. You see, the story is that Steinberg really blew it with Mrs. Thorn at a dinner party in Washington last week.”
“What?” David laughed.
“Kissinger was there, and Steinberg, I don’t know, drank too much, something. Apparently he made an ass of himself and Kissinger took him apart, mostly over the Jerry Brown cover.”
David felt himself go weak. He had written the Jerry Brown cover.
Cane noticed. “Don’t worry. Kissinger made fun of putting the story on the cover, not the piece itself. You’re in no danger.”
David smiled. “I wasn’t worried,” he said, but he had already begun to reconstruct his lunch with Syms. Maybe it had been a warning.
Tony was drunk. Gloria had reordered drinks for them while he went to the bathroom — more to relieve the relentless pressure of her promises than to ease his bladder. Tony continued to drink on his return, his hands restlessly grabbing anything on the table while he earnestly nodded at Gloria’s comments. He emptied four glasses of water, half of his pack of cigarettes, and three Scotches and soda. Eventually he wished he could repeat his journey to the john for a practical visit, but embarrassed to do so, Tony ended up squeezing his legs together while he ate his scallops. Gloria Fowler, one of the most important packagers in the movie business, was sitting opposite, convincing him to write for the movies, and all he wanted was to pee. He began to enjoy the contrast of an infantile sensation against the adult nature of the lunch’s purpose. Irony appealed to Tony: he relished having so important and wonderful a job as writing Bill Garth’s next movie put before him as if he were not only competent for the job, but had to be persuaded to take it. Wasn’t this an excellent revenge on his childhood?